The protection of British and Dutch commerce was never complete, for the French privateers were active to the end, but French commerce was wholly ruined.

A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with a hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire.

Still it had to be done; they had known better, much better, and been reined in scarcely days before; so flagrant a breach, left unchecked, would have wholly ruined them.

This began in the mid-17th century and by 1694 the castle is described as "wholly ruined".

The poem goes on to say that if she were to have even one shade more darkness, or a bit less light, she would be, though not wholly ruined, "half impair'd".

Even Gollum was not wholly ruined.

But indeed he was longer gone than he had purposed; for he had found the haven of Vinyalondë now wholly ruined, and great seas had brought to nothing all his labours to restore it.